Truckee Railyard finally moves forward
By Mayumi Elegado, Ally Gravina, Dave Zook, and Meghan Herbst, Moonshine Ink
The Truckee Railyard project heralds a lot of firsts. It’s the first time the town of Truckee has partnered this closely with a developer. Likely the first time a developer convinced Union Pacific to accept commercial development within a balloon track. The first time this site will diverge from a history of industrial uses. The first Truckee project for Holliday Development, which has been building mix-used communities in the Bay Area for more than 20 years.
After spending 12 years and counting on the Truckee Railyard, owner and developer Rick Holliday acutely feels the pain of being a pioneer. In addition to the pocketful of firsts, the site offers up issues of environmental cleanup, significant infrastructure updates, airplane flight paths overhead, a railroad running through, and a heap of expectations from the Town.
Truckee Development Associates LLC (led by Holliday Development) is in charge of the Railyard Project. The parent company specializes in public-private partnerships and sustainable infill projects, and so is no stranger to complicated projects. Overall, the field of infill redevelopment is not for the “faint of heart,” Holliday says, but “[the Railyard] is by far the most complex development I’ve ever worked with.”
